We've all lived many lives

Dimentium

If Nintendo had one job for a survival horror game from an indie developer Dimentium shows it could be done.

Dimentium is a first person flick staring silent protagonist, me. Intro starts off with me in a Hospital. In a wheel chair and then dumped into a hole where I wake up in a panic. First thing to note we have tank controls! This means the toggle is for moving, A,B,X, and Y for looking around. Though, this can also be used on the touch pad screen. However, I found it a lot more palatable to play utilizing all the buttons and rarely having to utilize the touch pad as little as possible.

Now the basis here is surviving the Hospital. Presumably an asylum and there’s evil creatures and “zombies” around trying to kill me. Kinda like that one game a couple months ago, “Oh, hi there Outlast. Wait, why did you walk in with Season One of The Walking Dead?”

This game takes heavily from the second scene of episode one in The Walking Dead and makes it the priority. Yaknow, the scene where Rick wakes up and finds himself in a hospital with zombies. Where AMC made this a near to three minute scene. Dementium didn’t necessarily expand upon it. More so, drug the idea out for 3 hours.

Here I am beda-bopping for seven floors of a “horror” filled hospital with a loose end of a plot line. Ambiguity is the word of the day here. First rule, under one minute of gameplay don’t have these two hints notes: “Why did you do it,” and “Murderer.”

Let me list why these two things don’t help with plot. First, I feel like now I know everything in little more than two sentences. In contrast let’s look at “Ambiguity” in Silent Hill 2. James tells everyone Mary (his wife) died 2/3 years ago because of a disease. Then there’s a plot twist M. Night Shalama-lama-on could only dream of. Dimentium doesn’t get bogged down with this shenanigans. If anything, the game will roll you through the punches of just having to survive the hallways, solve puzzles, and not try to address the elephant in the room too much about the who, what, when, where and why involved in the plot.

Essentially for an indie game at first glance has the idea of Outlast, with a hint of Silent Hill Shattered Memories, sprinkled with zombie killing time. Well, Dimentium doesn’t inspire much. If only it taps into a scheme Nintendo doesn’t tread too often with. Which is Survival Horror.